As rubbers for automobile tires, conjugated diene rubbers (for example, styrene-butadiene copolymers) obtained by emulsion polymerization methods have been known. In recent years, it has been expected to improve low fuel consumption performance of automobiles, and various conjugated diene rubbers capable of realizing excellent low fuel consumption performance have been proposed.
As an example, there have been proposed a conjugated diolefin (co)polymerized rubber characterized in (1) being a (co)polymer rubber of a conjugated diolefin or a conjugated diolefin and an aromatic vinyl compound, (2) having a primary amino group and an alkoxysilyl group bonded to a (co)polymer chain, and (3) that a bifunctional or more monomer is copolymerized in the (co)polymer chain, and/or that at least a part of the (co)polymer chain is coupled with a bifunctional or more coupling agent; and a rubber composition containing the conjugated diolefin (co)polymer (Patent Document 1).
As another example, there have been proposed a modified diene polymer rubber obtained from a step 1 of polymerizing a conjugated diene monomer or a conjugated diene monomer and an aromatic vinyl monomer in a hydrocarbon solvent in the presence of an alkali metal catalyst to obtain an active polymer having an alkali metal end, and a step 2 of reacting the active polymer with a compound represented by a specific formula to obtain a modified polymer rubber; and a rubber composition containing the modified diene polymer rubber (Patent Document 2).
Further, as a method for producing a modified polymer capable of promoting interactions with silica and carbon black and improving fracture characteristics, wear resistance and low exothermic properties, there have been proposed a method of performing a primary modification reaction in which a hydrocarbyloxysilane compound is reacted with a polymer having organometallic active sites in its molecule, at the active sites, and then performing a secondary modification reaction in which the hydrocarbyloxysilane compound is reacted through a condensation reaction of hydrocarbyloxysilyl groups with each other; and a rubber composition containing the modified polymer obtained by the method (Patent Document 3).